The Power of Love
by FluffyGonzalez
Summary: Living in a time loop causes Harry Potter to reflect on the nature of screwing (up or otherwise). One-shot.


The cell was cold and its walls were unadorned as Harry Potter was escorted to the plain chair within it. An Auror sat on the other side of a desk made of some sort of black metal. Harry looked at him expectantly.

"You are Harry James Potter?" asked the Auror, and Harry nodded with a slight smile.

"I hope you are familiar with your rights; if not, I am legally required to inform you of them."

"Consider me informed," said Harry, as he had countless times before.

"Can you explain your actions of May the Second, 1998?"

"I assume you're talking about the destruction of Hogwarts, and not my heroic victory over the Dark Lord Voldemort?" asked Harry pleasantly.

"The fabric of reality itself has been threatened," the Auror said with a frown. "First of all, how did you do it?"

"The Dark Lord really did kill me when I was a baby," Harry sighed. "And at that instant, I came into being."

"I—"

"Don't interrupt me and you'll get the answers you need. Now, little secret has been made of the fact that I was made a Horcrux by the Dark Lord himself, and thus my almost-death allowed me to finally render him mortal before killing him. However, the nature of the interrupted Horcrux ritual bound my soul eternally to the world. When I die, I'm going to wake up in Godric's Hollow again and again until I break the cycle."

He paused for the Auror to stutter some confused half-formed questions and held up a hand.

"In time," Harry sighed. "I was pissed the first time, I really was. There I was, having lived a long and fruitful life with Ginny Weasley, and I had to start the whole damned thing over again."

"Ginny Weasley? My files show that you—"

"We'll get to that," Harry reassured him. "The first time around, I wondered why it had happened. I thought perhaps if I fixed everything I screwed up the first time, the cycle would end and let me rest in piece. And of course I failed, and was sent back to start over. So I tried again, and again. I found that the course of the future shifted every time I changed something, but ultimately I was able to live a life as perfect as I could have hoped for. And then I died."

Harry pinched the bridge of his nose.

"I found myself back in Godric's Hollow. The depression lasted until I got to Hogwarts, where I climbed into the Chamber of Secrets and committed suicide by basilisk. I thought maybe I could end the cycle by suicide. It didn't work. The suicide attempts got more and more outlandish. I've been Kissed by dementors, eaten by Acromantulas, stabbed by mermaids, hexed in dark corridors by Death Eaters, and once I even helped Voldemort do everything properly just so he could kill me for real.

"It didn't work."

The man on the other side of the table was speechless by this point.

"And then it hit me one day, while researching resurrection rituals under the alibi of defeating Lord Voldemort. If time was the issue, I thought, then all I had to do was break time. And so I spent tens of lifetimes preparing for my final suicide.

"I began studying pick-up artists and psychology. I learned how to make love potions and enchantments of fascination. Over my seven years of Hogwarts, repeated ad infinitum, I made every single student fall in love with me at least once. Even the guys."

Harry grimaced. "I'm not bisexual, but I was desperate."

The Auror's face was blank, most likely because his sanity had revolted.

"But that wasn't enough," Harry continued regardless. "I turned my talents to the greater good and made them all love _each other_. And eventually, though only I was aware of it, there was not a single student who wasn't tied to multiple others over several lifetimes by my interference."

"What the hell does this have to do with—"

"Patience. You see, my mother used a Dark ritual to bond her motherly love to my soul, not just my blood. It's endured now for thousands of years, dragging me back to that cursed moment ever since. Don't ask me how it even functions ontologically, because her research was completely independent and I've been unable to recreate it. But if I was bound here by the power of love, I would use the power of love to break the binding.

"I waited for the Battle of Hogwarts, May the 2nd, and I cast a single spell."

Harry mimicked the necessary wand motions and said "_Amoris N-gonius._"

"The spell normally embodies the links of love between any individuals who have it. It was probably invented by a jealous wizard who thought his wife was cheating on him. But in that space, and from my wand, it targeted everyone and drew the bonds from every one of my lifetimes. I got the students, the teachers, and even some of the Death Eaters. And, of course, Voldemort was connected to me through the bond of my mother's love, and he got caught up in it as well. Due to my time-traveling and my, ahem, exploits, most of the spell was centered on me. The non-Euclidean resonance cascade was enough to crack the fabric of spacetime. I should have died. No, I should have never existed."

Harry leaned back and stared at the ceiling.

"One of my so-called friends saw the effect was centered on me and assumed that Voldemort was trying to do something to me. Whoever it was, they spent their final moments inducing a forced Apparition before everything was sucked into nothingness. So I failed to kill myself yet again."

He looked at the Auror, who had recovered some of his composure.

"Which brings us here."

"Mr. Potter, you are either delusional or a psychopath," said the Auror. "Possibly both."

"Likely," muttered Harry. "Listen, just throw me into the hole where Hogwarts used to be. I won't make trouble, and you know the Kiss won't do anything to me."

"The Ministry will have more questions," the Auror said curtly. "I've afraid it's against policy to let criminals dictate their own executions."

Harry felt the anger building inside of him. He'd been _this_ close…

He sighed. Having lived longer than any wizard alive, he was the most powerful magic-user in existence. He shattered the door with wandless magic and took off sprinting down the hall.

"Come back!" came his interrogator's futile shout. Harry smirked.

He knocked out the guards chasing after him. With a flick of his will, his wand snapped into his hand.

"_Accio_ broomstick!" he shouted, and leapt into the air as one of the Ministry-issue patrol brooms zoomed under him. He took off into the air.

He could see more brooms taking off in pursuit. He pressed his wand to the broom and pumped it full of additional magic. The bristles caught on fire, but he felt his speed increase by a factor of three. With a wave of his wand, he created a windshield and accelerated until he felt himself pass the anti-Apparition wards. He jumped off the broomstick and Apparated to the Hogwarts grounds, punching through the decaying remains of the wards. He felt an unusual tinge of regret, but ignored it as he sprinted for the howling nothingness where Hogwarts used to be.

Aurors Apparated in left and right, firing hexes. He batted them away, not bothering to return fire, and leapt into the void—

* * *

A dark night in Godric's Hollow. An unnaturally high-pitched voice shouting "_Avada Kedavra!"_ A flash of green and an otherworldly scream.

And then…

"FUCK!"


End file.
